I shall come into your dream
As a black ewe, approach the throne
On withered and infirm
Legs, bleating: «Padishah,
Have you dined well? You who hold
The world like a bead, beloved
of Allah, was my little son
To your taste, was he fat enough»
Я приснюсь тебе черной овцою
На нетвердых, сухих ногах,
Подойду, заблею, завою:
"Сладко ль ужинал, падишах?
Ты вселенную держишь, как бусу,
Светлой волей Аллаха храним...
Так пришелся ль сынок мой по вкусу
И тебе, и деткам твоим?"
«There’s no way for me to go back! / I scream at full anguish. / I run around the squares / Of the chess board. I step on every other one: / The others — are not mine. / Oh, my stingy joy, / You split me, too, in two. So that I’m to measure by half. / That I’m to believe by ha...»
«At first You loved / Beauty best, / Curls touched with henna, / Plaintive call of the zurna, / Ringing — of hooves — on flint, / A shapely dismount, / In two Turkish slippers / Embroidered with semi-precious . . . Then You loved — someone else — / Sharp arched eyebrow, / S...»
«Still darkness, darkness everywhere. / And still so early in the world, / Innumerable stars appear / And each so bright in the night air / That if the earth could count them there, / It would sleep through Easter, lulled / By chanted psalm and chanted prayer. Still darkness, darkness ev...»
«A girl is freezing in a telephone booth, / huddled in her flimsy coat, / her face stained by tears / and smeared with lipstick. She breathes on her thin little fingers. / Fingers like ice. Glass beads in her ears. She has to beat her way back alone / down the icy street. First frost. A...»